20 Pounds

The Union Bank of Scotland was absorbed into the Bank of Scotland in 1955, making the early 1950s issues the final chapter of a note-issuing history stretching back to 1830. This 1950 twenty-pound note is among the last the Union Bank would produce as an independent institution — the merger negotiations were already underway before the decade was out.

Waterlow & Sons printed Scottish commercial bank notes throughout this period, and the quality of their intaglio work on high-denomination issues was generally reliable. The £20 saw limited everyday circulation by nature of its value in 1950s Scotland, which means surviving examples can show either minimal wear from hoarding or heavy folds from commercial use — the distribution is uneven across the series.